


a place where there's room to grow

by 13pens



Series: More Than the Shadows (of Each Other) [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Other, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1713299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13pens/pseuds/13pens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renewal is a terrifying prospect, and she hasn’t had this chance since, well, Glinda.</p><p>It seems terrifying to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> special thanks to amy (corasqueen) for keeping me on track and onellabella/corasparasol for headcanoning and flailing with me.
> 
> yes the title is from a carpenters song. so sue me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She opens her eyes again, meets Zelena’s own and she looks different. Softer. Like this can work after all.
> 
> “Come down for breakfast. And put that back where it came from, please.”
> 
> Zelena gives a defiant huff and wraps the throw around her body tighter while beginning down the steps. “Make me, hermanita.”

The conversation is long overdue. It needs to happen because Regina wants and needs Henry in her life as much as he wants to be, and she shouldn’t have put it off but she has _so much_ on her plate and it’s not been five minutes and she already wants to wrap her hands around someone’s neck. In the not so gentle and amorous way.

 

“Absolutely not,” Emma dares to say, and it only feeds the headache that Regina has as she walks from one side of her office to the other. “She’s still dangerous.”

 

“And you’re still not his only mother,” Regina grumbles, her back to Emma. She doesn’t look back to see what kind of sting she’d left.

 

“You didn’t even tell me what you were doing,” Emma evades, “You kept this from me!”

 

“You never bothered to check.” She briefly turns, points a silencing finger at her, “And before you even dare to think it, _yes_ , I was thinking about Henry when I made the decision to help her. I have never made choices that would affect him without also thinking about him. This discussion we’re having is not an _afterthought_.”

 

Emma crosses her arms, frowns deeply, and she looks so much like her mother, _so much_ that when Regina rounds to complete another walking cycle across the room and sees that inherited look of disapproval, she may need to check herself into the hospital for something like hypertension.

 

And then, Emma softens. She leans against the desk and sighs, and Regina is quietly relieved.

 

“Okay. So you’ve taken her in and she’s staying there. Now what?”

 

“I’ve laid out precautions, of course. She cannot leave the house unless I or you or anyone with any bit of reliable competence accompanies her. When Henry is here“––Emma is suddenly preoccupied with her thumbs, and Regina glares at her because she knows, the entire world would have known––“and he _will_ be here, because that is what he explicitly _wants_ , she’ll be unable to leave her room.”

 

“Sounds solid,” Emma replies, voice low and guilt-laden but very, very dubious.

 

“Good that you think so,” Regina says dryly. And then she stops her slow pacing, stands right in front of Emma. “You understand, don’t you?” The change in her voice is enough to prompt Emma to actually look up at her. “You understand why I can’t just leave her behind?”

 

And Emma––Emma is unreliable. Emma the one who turns around to scream “he’s _my son_ ” right after “I know her, I believe her” and Emma who will jump off a boat to stop a storm or fake a goose chase to get everyone off Regina’s back. It's just never just one kind of Emma.

 

But then, there are the good, _good_ moments, when everything is all aligned, when shoulders sag in lowered defenses and eyes reflect genuine sympathy: “Yes. I do.”

 

* * *

 

 

Days pass and it’s okay. Everyone including Regina seems to be holding their breath for something to go wrong, but it’s okay. For once in maybe never, perhaps they can all coexist in Storybrooke without something going terribly, terribly wrong.

 

When it’s time for Henry to stay over for the next few nights, Regina instructs Zelena to stay in her room with the exception of when Henry is asleep while Regina is awake, or when both of them are out.

 

“I have to be thinking about Henry,” Regina says firmly when Zelena is averse, “I have to be thinking about his safety.”

 

“I thought you were beginning to trust me. What happened to believing in me?” 

 

“First thing you did to Henry upon meeting him was threaten to kill him!”

 

It doesn’t really matter what Regina believes, if he doesn’t feel safe, if he _isn’t_ safe, then she can’t see her son. And when Zelena crosses her arms, lets out a defeated “fine”, it is met with a sharp “thank you” that doesn’t really sound like thanks and more like “finally.”

 

* * *

 

 

The first night he’s visibly tense, though he tries to hide it. Her beautiful boy is so brave, but tonight he’s scared. He looks up at the staircase and doesn’t begin climbing it.

 

“It’s okay, Henry,” she says, taking his hand. “She’s not going to hurt you.”

 

But then he shakes his head. “I just don’t want her to hurt _you_.”

 

Beautiful, brave, good Henry.

 

“She won’t.”

 

(After she puts him to bed she knocks gently on Zelena’s door before opening it, and finds her sitting on her feet with the dinner plate Regina had given her earlier at the end of the bed.

 

“I wouldn’t, you know.” She doesn’t really look at her. She sounds so small. “Not anymore. I wouldn’t.”)

 

But something changes over the course of Henry’s stay. Regina notices his line of sight lingering on Zelena’s door before he goes into his own room, the way there’s no longer worry in his eyes when Regina excuses herself to bring food up to her. When they go out to get ice cream and go for a walk in the park, he says, “Next time, maybe she can come with us? She must be lonely.”

 

And he’s not wrong, he’s not wrong. “You know Emma would go after me if I let Zelena near you this soon.”

 

Henry knits his brow together, gets chocolate ice cream on the corners of his upper lip. “That’s not very fair.”

 

Regina sighs, because she knows it’s not. She’s trying to make it easy but it’s not that simple, they all know it’s not that simple, and that everything sucks when they try to make it simple.

 

“Everyone has to earn trust,” she says, and it’s insufficient, so much more talking needs to be done but now’s not really the time when she has him for so little. “Zelena included. And me, apparently, still.”

 

Henry shakes his head solemnly, like he’s so much older than the twelve year old he is, but then he bites into the cone and screeches when the cold wraps around the front of his teeth, and Regina laughs and laughs.

 

The sun is beginning to set when they come home. Henry is a little tired and he says he’ll pass on helping make dinner tonight, so Regina leaves him in the family room to watch TV (“Emma says I’m old enough to watch _Game of Thrones_ now?” “Nice try. But never.”). The oven’s going when Regina notices that the television isn’t even on––Henry likes to have his volume at deafening levels––and she walks in to find him kneeling on the floor looking curiously through the shelves of their entertainment center.

 

“Is something wrong?”

 

“Things are out of alphabetical order.”

 

Regina blinks (and then maybe smiles, because the memory of a tiny, meticulous Henry alphabetizing everything he could possibly get his hands on once he had learned how arises and she feels warm with love). “Oh.”

 

“Wizard of Oz was in the player when I got here.” And then he laughs, because he understands, then he scrunches up his face. “How much do you think she hated it?”

 

“Probably very much,” Regina answers, smiling but knowing.

 

“Do you think she wants to join us for dinner?”

 

“Maybe next time, _querido_.”

 

And the smile on his face no longer reaches his beautiful brown eyes as he nods. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Henry always knows how to bend the rules, though. He is the son of a pair of ex-thieves and moreover he is Regina’s, so of course at midnight when she has a feeling that something is off, she finds that he is no longer in bed, and neither is Zelena. She’s ready to panic, but that feeling is put on hold when she goes downstairs and the family room emits a blue glow.

 

She finds Zelena wrapped in the freaking couch throw at the end of the sofa while Henry is curled up asleep on the floor, his heavy stubborn head resting on a cushion. 

 

Zelena sniffs, wipes her eyes––oh gods, why is she crying––and lifts up the DVD cover of _Lilo and Stitch_ and waves it for Regina to see. “Your son insisted we should.”

 

Regina is absolutely at a loss for words. Maybe this is a dream, maybe she’s asleep and when she wakes up this isn’t happening cause it’s actually _ridiculous_ , and her silence is long enough for Stitch to gurgle at Nani, “ _Ohana_ means family. And family…”

 

“…Means no one gets left behind,” Regina fills in with Nani.

 

("Or forgotten. Yeah.")

 

And then Regina pinches the bridge of her nose, curses under her breath a little because this is her life. She puts her robe over her snoring baby boy and curls up next to Zelena until the movie is done because Zelena, a grown woman and _the_ former Wicked Witch of the West, is quietly weeping over a little girl and her tiny, broken family, and there isn’t really much Regina can do but let it happen.

 

* * *

 

 

Early in the morning, Emma’s waiting in the driveway for Henry. He stuffs his things into his backpack with his eyes half open, and Regina doesn’t say anything about Zelena but rather admonishes him on sleeping later than he’s supposed to. A groggy kiss on the cheek and a “tell _tía Zeta_ she was fun to watch movies with” later, he’s out the door.

 

She leans on the doorframe, waves in a civil gesture to Emma. The bug clicks and drives away and Regina closes the door, waits for the next round.

 

“ _Tía Zeta_ ,” she sighs and shakes her head.

 

“He came up with it,” she hears Zelena say above the stairs. Regina looks up at her, and she’s still wrapped in the couch throw. “Like Auntie Z but cooler. His words.”

 

She thinks of Henry enthusiastically coming up with nicknames for her sister to properly induct her into his family, and she laughs. “I would’ve went with _tía Greenga_.”

 

The joke half-flies over Zelena’s head but what she says next is more important anyway. “I can see why you love him.”

 

Regina smiles genuinely, looks down and sleepily scratches the back of her head. “There isn’t really a _why_ , in the end.”

 

“He’s remarkably forgiving, given all I did. Given all _you_ did.”

 

“That’s a recent development,” Regina says, her eyes closed and her hand still in her hair. She feels wrong saying it, but she needs to let Zelena know that she isn't the only responsible agent of change in this reconciliation. “It wasn’t always that way. But I’ve learned so much. _He’s_ learned so much. And you will, too.”

 

She opens her eyes again, meets Zelena’s own and she looks different. Softer. Like this can work after all.

 

“Come down for breakfast. And put that back where it came from, please.”

 

Zelena gives a defiant huff and wraps the throw around her body tighter while beginning down the steps. “Make me, _hermanita_.”

 

Regina thinks of Zelena asking Henry, “how would you say…?” and shakes her head laughing, walks in the direction of the kitchen.

 

“ _Greenga sin la verde.”_

 

_“_ What?”

 

“Nothing. Waffles or pancakes?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then the farther she gets away, the more doesn’t want to go back. She locates the utensil caddy and picks it up but she actually begins to shake, making the spoons and forks rattle and she has to put it down or else she’ll drop it and then she cries because she can’t do a bloody a dinner and she can’t have all these eyes scrutinizing her and measuring how much she’s changed by how civil––how afraid––she can be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minor content warning: leopold's name, leopold's existence, the memory of leopold and allusions to the shitbag that he was.

With Henry gone for another week it’s back to routine, and perhaps it’s a sick joke when Regina starts bringing Zelena to the office to help with file sorting or licking envelopes, a plethora of the mundane, but Regina calls it “giving yourself something to do” and she might as well. It is a far cry from winged monkeys and devious plotting, and that should be ‘good’, as they define it here.

 

She’s actually suffocating, though. Yes this is better than being locked away in a cell, but she longs for existence outside of wherever Regina is, and without any spark of magic within her being, she feels like she might as well disappear altogether. Yes Regina is actually excruciatingly kind, yes Henry is an unexpected joy, but she knows they’re the rare few, and renewal _is_ a terrifying prospect, and she hasn’t had this chance since, well, _Glinda_.

 

It seems terrifying to _live_. 

 

 “We have company for dinner tonight,” Regina drops nonchalantly while going through the last of her documents and signing them. Zelena freezes at the filing cabinet, papers sorted by department still in her hands, but then she thaws quick enough for Regina to miss.

 

“Is that going to be followed with, ‘be on your best behavior, Zelena’?” she says, a front up again, “‘No making trouble, Zelena, here have a biscuit for being good’?”

 

Regina huffs, amused. “You may identify with Stitch on an emotional level but you’re not a dog. You haven’t bitten anyone once.”

 

“Not yet, maybe,” Zelena mutters, double checking and triple checking that she’s put the right things in the right place before closing the cabinet and turning to Regina. “Who’s coming? And whose idea was this anyway?”

 

“Snow, David, Emma, the baby, and Henry. Plus Robin and Roland.” Regina has a smile that stupidly widens as she goes down the list. Zelena rolls her eyes. “And the idea was mine. I thought we could celebrate a time of peace, together.”

 

“Oh, marvelous, everyone I threatened to destroy in some way all at one table. Sure way to celebrate that, sis.”

 

“Isn’t it?” Regina cleans off her desk and begins putting on her coat. “If it makes you feel better, I’ve tried to do away with the first three multiple times. They get over it eventually.”

 

She wants to believe her. She really does, but when even Regina’s reassuring smile looks dead against the uncertainty of her eyes, she doesn’t know that she can.

 

 _Finish her_.

 

“Not Rumple though,” Zelena says as they walk out to Regina’s car. “That’s why he won’t be dining with us. Because he’ll kill me as soon as he sees me.”

 

Regina doesn’t respond until they’re both inside and she’s started the engine. Her voice is low and rough and Zelena can see that snarl as she pushes the stick into drive. “He wasn’t invited.”

 

* * *

 

The first to arrive are the Locksleys––Hoods? Who knows––and Zelena has to look away when Regina and Robin close in to greet each other with kisses (because perhaps her skin feels cold and perhaps she’s been holding down a hunger that no one can particularly feed).

 

Roland stares up at her curiously with his index finger between his lower teeth and lip as she sets up the plates on the dining table, and something like guilt weighs down on her chest to the pit of her stomach, and the more he stares at her the more unnerving it gets. She is quietly relieved when Robin scoops him up enthusiastically into his arms, but then now they’re trying to _interact_ with her.

 

“Hey now, Roland, this is Zelena. Say hi, won’t you?” Roland waves the hand not in his mouth and Regina’s smile is getting stupid again. 

 

Zelena tries to plaster on an amiable face, but this was so much easier to do when she hid maliciousness behind it rather than _fear_.

 

But they buy it.

 

“I need to get forks,” she says to excuse herself into the kitchen.

 

And then the farther she gets away, the more doesn’t want to go back. She locates the utensil caddy and picks it up but she actually begins to shake, making the spoons and forks rattle and she has to put it down or else she’ll drop it and then she cries because she can’t do a bloody a dinner and she can’t have all these eyes scrutinizing her and measuring how much she’s changed by how civil––(how _afraid_ )––she can be. 

 

Regina walks in and Zelena turns to her immediately, watching all the merriment washing away into concern. “Maybe I should take this meal upstairs.”

 

“Why? What’s wrong?” 

 

“I don’t think I’m ready for this humiliation.” 

 

She has her hands over her eyes in a desperate attempt to catch the stubborn tears when Regina gently removes them, dabs a folded paper towel on her wet face. Zelena’s first instinct is to push her away, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to. Her touch is comforting and genuine and gentle and she doesn’t know if she wants anyone else to see this kind of vulnerability.

 

“Listen,” Regina says softly, “Henry’s coming soon. He’s going to smile at you and call you _tía Zeta_ and tell everyone stories about how he and Emma mowed over a hundred zombies in Dead Rising 3. The baby will gurgle and not even know you are there. Snow and David will say something completely idiotic, it’s guaranteed, it’s just a matter of who does it first and about what and how many times, and then when the dinner is over we can laugh about it behind their backs.”  Zelena’s eyes have begun to dry. “Sound good?”

 

She nods.

 

Regina puts her hands on her forearms and smiles. “A resilient heart. I’m not the only one who has that, right?”

 

She’s at a loss for words, because now she’s connecting the dots between what Regina has and how Regina is and maybe, maybe, maybe, if she can follow the steps she’s laying out for her, she can have the same things without needing to take them from her.

 

“Thanks, sis.”

 

They hear the front door open and Henry’s heavy grown footsteps and his happy, rumbling voice. 

 

“Let’s get those potatoes out of the oven. You can serve the pasta.”

 

* * *

 

It’s not as excruciating as she thought it would be, no. It’s a just lot more insidious. 

 

Regina takes her seat at the head of the table, Zelena to her right. When Henry plops down next to her she notices Emma Swan’s breath hitch, who directly across from her looks uneasy as it is next to Robin, who has Roland bouncing on his lap. After Henry is David, after Emma is Snow.

 

The baby boy––whom they’ve named _Neal_ , fantastic, double whammy––is cradled in Snow White’s arm. She can see the way she holds him closer, tighter, whenever she makes eye contact with her, and in the end, Zelena supposes that she can’t blame her for being afraid, even just a little bit.

 

David tries to set the tone of the event with a slanted smile and a laugh: “If this is a casual family dinner I can’t wait to see how Christmas and Thanksgiving looks like.”

 

Everyone laughs knowingly, even if that knowledge is deeper for some and shallow for others.

 

“Did you guys know Aunt Zelena is really good at card tricks?” Henry pipes in when there’s a period of silence save for the clatter of forks on plates.

 

Zelena actually blushes, because now everyone except for Regina and the Locksley-Hoods are looking at her in that nervous way because gods forbid that she spend time with their little wonder boy that yes fine she strangled a bit in the beginning but they were past that, right?

 

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve, I suppose,” she responds with a shaky huff of a laugh.

 

“I bet you do,” Emma says crisply, not looking up from her plate. Regina gives her a disapproving look.

 

“Emma,” Snow hushes, and Robin begins talking about the time he played poker for the first time in the Rabbit Hole without knowing any of the rules to sweep off the tension, and it dissipates everywhere except for in Emma’s jaw.

 

Zelena figures that it’s because she gave her Walsh, created the circumstances for Baelfire’s death, and that she was this close to hurting Henry, and if it weren’t for her, if it weren’t for any of this, she could still be happy with Henry in New York. 

 

That would make sense to her, but then Emma is also looking at Regina and Robin with a blend of anger and sadness. So Zelena doesn’t really look at her anymore. It’s none of her business.

 

Zelena puts the last of her pasta in her mouth and then helps herself to baked potato. She remains civil, genuinely laughs at Henry’s jokes, manages to hold a bizarre yet decent conversation with David about sheep. Snow looks on, and Zelena doesn’t know whether the upward curl of her mouth is genuine or defensive, but she carries on and ignores the growing awareness that she is simultaneously the elephant in the room and yet so, so, small.

 

And when the dinner is over, she’s happy to disappear.

 

“Zelena,” Snow catches her before she goes out to the foyer. She is clutching little Neal less than before. “I’m really looking forward to you being part of this family.”

 

The bright smile that quickly makes its way to Zelena’s face is because she’s trying very, very hard not to laugh her out the front door. “Thank you, Snow White.”

 

Maybe she holds in that laugh for when she goes upstairs and to her room. Maybe when she’s alone again, when the door closes and she can no longer hear their voices, nothing really comes out of her mouth.

 

* * *

 

The comfort of a clean face, pin-free hair, pajamas, and her bed is all it really takes to ease her. She lays there silently, taking the solitude as time to _breathe._ And then Regina comes in without knocking, drops belly-down next to her on the mattress and lets her feet dangle off the end.

 

Zelena sighs. “We’re too old for slumber parties.”

 

Regina lifts her head up and holds it up with a propped elbow. “You want some wine?” 

 

“Now we’re talking.”

 

She moves to get up, but then pauses. “Could I just…?”

 

Zelena waves an indifferent hand, because who gives a shit after tonight. So one obnoxious purple puff of smoke later, Regina’s sitting up and handing her a wine glass. 

 

“What’s this for, then?” She takes a sip and if she weren’t so tired she’d be adding the fine wine to her list of things that Regina has that annoys her.

 

Regina lets her drink swish around a bit, careful not to let it spill. “I figured you could use a reward for enduring that.”

 

“You couldn’t reward me enough,” Zelena mumbles, glass midway to her mouth. “It wasn’t a disaster. I’m fine.”

 

Regina looks at her closely for a moment, because she only really half believes her, and she looks sorry. Zelena begins to grow agitated because she needs to stop looking so _sorry_.

 

“Was I the only one to think that Snow White could’ve done better naming her child?” she tangents.

 

“ _Neal_. Wasn’t even his real name,” Regina mutters. “Still better than what she originally wanted to call him.”

 

“Which was?” She’s expecting to laugh, they’re both kind of expecting to laugh, but then––

 

“Leopold.” It comes out heavier than Regina probably intended it to. And now she’s downing her glass like nobody’s business. 

 

Now’s not the time. They just had the weirdest dinner and just last week they were tossing each other on the floor, one with the intent to kill and the other with the intent to _stop_ , so now’s not the time but Regina’s saying it anyway.

 

“When you were watching me in the Enchanted Forest,” she pauses, clears her throat. Her vision isn’t focused. “Did you see…”

 

She doesn’t have to finish for Zelena to know what she’s talking about. She remembers the visible lump in her throat and the terrified glint in her eyes as an old wrinkled hand led her to their chambers. How that glint slowly turned into emptiness.

 

 “Yes.”

 

Regina huffs a mirthless laugh, running a finger along the rim of the empty glass. “I bet you thought I deserved it then,” she says quietly.

 

The wine has settled uncomfortably in Zelena’s stomach, mingling with the guilt and the anger that she never really felt before when confronted with this feat of Regina’s royal life. 

 

“At the time I thought it was a necessary sacrifice,” she answers evenly, and she sees it sting Regina in the corner of her eyes.

 

“I see.”

 

“But if I had been there,” she starts, voice rumbling low, and what she says next reminds them both of Regina in the car talking about Rumple. “I’d have killed him sooner.”

 

Then she looks at Regina and Regina’s looking at her, and she thinks they both might cry. But instead Regina stretches her arm to place her glass at the end table and flops back down on her stomach.

 

“I have a mental list of all the dim-witted things that have left the Charmings’ mouths tonight. I’m assuming as much that you have the same.”

 

Zelena’s grin matches her sister’s. “You won’t _believe_ what Snow White had the audacity to say to me earlier.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I take it that you’ve had your fair share of Glindas, then.” Her voice is murky and maybe that sound she makes afterward is where the line between laughter and sobbing is.
> 
> “You could say that,” Regina replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter took a while as it needed to be rewritten (and i still feel weird about it! argh!). next chapter should come with a smaller gap. hopefully. 
> 
> extra thanks to amy, onella, and everyone who's taken interest in whatever i'm doing here.
> 
> also, bear with me: ~drama~ happens, everyone is a mess, and nobody is ever done talking.

She needs to find an easier way to congratulate Zelena every time she passes a social milestone. Exposing herself to the Storybrooke public without her presence deserves something of comfort equal to the distress that today might have brought.

 

Of course, it’s only just the evening, Regina’s had but one text from Emma saying that her lunch-test with Zelena at the diner was fine and no one was injured in the process. But she has yet to hear Zelena’s feelings on today, so she’s not even sure.

 

As she walks down the street lined with shops, she passes Storybrooke Electronics. She could get her a cell phone, maybe. That’s practical. (Then she thinks of how that would be underestimating Zelena's propensity to be an annoying shit so maybe not just yet.)

 

Regina doesn’t even know why she’s taking time to do this. She’s Zelena’s _hermanita_ , not her mother, or her… _trainer_ , the way she’s trying out this reward system, like she’s giving treats to a pet after they’ve behaved. That’s not how this is supposed to be.

 

But there is a priority to let Zelena have things of her own. She did, after all, spend a great amount of time coveting both the material and immaterial things of Regina’s life, and now she must be suffocating. So what Regina is doing is definitely not the be all and end all of fixing any of that, but it could be meaningful. 

 

And then she sees the bookstore and the idea lights up in her head with such brightness that she has to stop and congratulate herself.

 

* * *

 

There’s Frankie Valli playing on the family room stereo when Regina comes home with the paper bag in her hands. It’s already sundown, and Zelena must have been home alone for several hours, so it’s really no surprise to Regina that she’d spent any amount of time disorganizing their music.

 

“Turn that down for a moment, I have something for you,” she says, and she can see how Zelena responds to her anticipant grin with a raised eyebrow.

 

They sit down on the couch, where Zelena has managed to leave a pile of CD cases in addition to on the floor and coffee table. 

 

“I hope you’ve put the discs in the right cases or so help me, Zelena––“ 

 

“Yeah, yeah. Get on with it.”

 

“Firstly,” Regina says, withholding the paper bag. “How was lunch?”

 

Zelena rolls her eyes. “Great, dandy, dwarves glared at me, Emma said I wasn’t too bad but then didn’t speak to me halfway after, and I had a milkshake. Now then?”

 

Regina isn’t satisfied, but proceeds anyway as that’s likely a conversation for later. She takes the book out of the bag and hands it to Zelena, who stares at it suspiciously.

 

“ _Wicked_ : _The Life and Times of the_ … really?”

 

“You don’t sound too pleased.”

 

“Is this a joke?” 

 

“I believe everyone in this town should be well-versed in this world’s fiction. Especially as it pertains to them.”

 

“My life isn’t fiction,” Zelena replies, and Regina’s worried that she’s messed it up, but then Zelena takes the book in her hands and she’s smiling, and if anyone would have told her years ago that she’d be self-conscious about gifts she’d give to her formerly murderous half-sister, she’d have laughed them out of the room.

 

“You’re asking me to indulge in this possible inaccuracy just to annoy me, aren’t you?”

 

“It can be fun. I’m almost offended that you get a whole series and a musical and I get Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and variations in which I always lose.”

 

“Ha.” Zelena starts flipping through the book. “Elphaba?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“ _Pfft_.”

 

“Well, try Grimhilde. It’s not even close! And the things she wears…”

 

They both laugh, and it feels so nice, she wishes it would always be this nice, but then Zelena’s skimming through more pages and she must see something wrong because the light slowly leaves her, her smile no longer reaches her eyes.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

Zelena ignores the question, sets the book down on the table and returns her attention to the pile of CDs. “Thank you for the gift. I’ll humor you, but not today. Is this one any good?”

 

She holds up the ABBA Gold album, and Regina has to stifle whatever sound would have come out of her mouth. 

 

“Yes. Give it a listen.” Then she’s no longer as light hearted, instead looks at Zelena intently. “But later. Tell me what just happened there.”

 

“What?”

 

Regina gives her that pointed look because Zelena’s playing dumb doesn’t work with her, and she sighs, moves her hands about in frustration.

 

“Glinda’s in there, and I don’t quite exactly have the fondest memories of her, alright?”

 

The feeling of stupidity slowly washes over Regina, but the expression on her face softens in hopes that it sufficiently masks her shame. (Briefly, she thinks that she should’ve gone with the cell phone.)

 

“She told Snow and Charming that you two used to be friends.”

 

Zelena’s back stiffens. “You met her?”

 

“Snow and Charming,” Regina repeats. “I couldn’t go through the door. I wasn’t ‘pure’ enough.” She exaggerates the air quotes and Zelena almost laughs, but then she’s looking pensively at nothing.

 

“She was the first person that told me that destiny as what I made it into,” Zelena says quietly, and her voice––Regina’s never heard it before. “She said that if I believed I was evil, that’s what I would become.”

 

Regina nods hesitantly. “She wasn’t entirely false.”

 

Zelena leans her head back, her neck meeting perfectly with arch of the couch. “I blew that second chance. She told me to simply choose to be good and I didn’t.”

 

Something cold starts in Regina’s chest, a small burst and then she’s furrowing her brow. Zelena looks over at her and is actually startled; perhaps she expected to find sorrow and sympathy, but instead there is anger.

 

“What?”

 

“Listen, Zelena,” she starts, lips tight and arms crossed, and she’s not even surprised that this would be the same for Zelena –– it’s always the same for people like them –– but she’s still so _angry_ , “Glinda may have had the right idea about destiny, but simply watering it down to an easy choice of ‘should I be good or should I be evil’, and then pulling out completely when you’ve made the wrong one is just … _absurd_. It isn’t how it _works_.”

 

Zelena scoffs slightly, but she’s shaking her head and there’s a tear falling down her face. Perhaps she’s crying because the pain of Oz is returning, or because that she’d never been _told_.

 

“So you don’t think it was my fault that I attacked Dorothy in the first place and then faked my own death to get back at Glinda?”

 

“Let’s not get too carried away,” Regina begins to laugh, then closes a warm hand over hers. “But believe me when I say that change is not overnight.”

 

“It seems easy with you, though,” Zelena admits with no hesitation, holds on to Regina’s fingers. All the potential rage in her head quiets.

 

“We’ve both gone through very similar things," Regina explains. "It makes a difference, when we’re helping each other instead of fighting. I like to think so, anyway.”

 

Zelena sits up and wipes her face dry with her sleeve. “I take it that you’ve had your fair share of Glindas, then.” Her voice is murky and maybe that sound she makes afterward is where the line between laughter and sobbing is.

 

“You could say that,” Regina replies. She really could, despite the complexities between her and Snow and maybe even Emma. There is no evil without a brand of Glinda.

 

Regina reaches up and smears a rolling tear off of Zelena’s face with an exaggerated roughness so that she winces and bats her hand away, and they both break into soft laughter. “You should really fix this mess that you’ve created. Henry was forgiving the first time but when he comes back again soon to see that you’ve disordered our music, too––“

 

There’s an aggressive knocking on the door followed by two rings on the doorbell, startling the two of them.

 

“I don’t suppose soon meant now, did it?” Zelena asks, clearly confused.

 

“No,” Regina replies, just as puzzled, then rises to make her way to the foyer. 

 

Zelena doesn’t follow immediately, and for a moment she thinks perhaps she’d lied to her, that something _did_ go wrong that afternoon, so she wells up her magic in defense, balling up in her stomach as she approaches the door to potentially fend off whoever is pounding on the surface so urgently.

 

It would be easier if that were the case. That would be miles and miles preferable to what actually happens.

 

“Henry?” Regina says incredulously. He’s out of breath, there’s dirt on the left side of his body, and he’s crying. Her baby boy has shown up at her front door crying.

 

He pushes himself through the door, wrapping desperate arms around her and he’s _hurting_. “Mom,” he muffles, his entire body shaking. “I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna leave you.”

 

She rubs his back and clings onto him. “Baby, what happened? Tell me what happened. Where’s Emma?” He freezes up at her name, and Regina stops breathing. “She … didn’t. She didn’t try to take you, Henry, did she?” 

 

Henry sobs in confirmation, and in just a matter of seconds, Regina's world starts to crumble. Trusting Emma is like building a house on sand.

 

She turns, her arm securely wrapped around his shaking shoulder. Zelena is standing in the hall with a look of confusion, but something is there, something like realization and regret. Regina looks away, gently pushes Henry in her direction. 

 

“Stay with your _tía_ for a while, Henry. I need to make a call.”

 

* * *

 

Emma Swan has the _gall_ to have this conversation in person, glassy-eyed and apologetic and full of _shit_.

 

“I panicked,” Emma pleads, “I was panicking and my first instinct was to run.”

 

“ _Since when_ ,” Regina presses, voice rumbling at the pit of her stomach and she’s glad, so glad that Zelena and Henry are upstairs in his room where they may thankfully not hear. “Since when is packing _all_ of your things up, putting _our son_ in a car with the intent to _leave forever_ , acting on _instinct_?”

 

Emma shakes her head, and so many tears are falling from the both of them, because how could they be here again? How could they be still doing this miserable song and dance after everything?

 

“It wasn’t like that.”

 

“ _Emma_ ,” Regina actually sobs. _Unreliable Emma_. Emma who says she understands and then does _this_. “Stop pretending. Please stop pretending.” 

 

She’s silent in response, and Regina supposes that tonight, it is the closest thing to Emma admitting that she’ll ever get.

 

Regina covers her eyes with her palms, sighs deeply. She is just so _tired_. 

 

“What is it, then, Emma?” she starts. “Do you just not trust me? Do you think I’ve made a mistake with Zelena?”

 

“No, Regina––“

 

“ _Then what_?” Regina shouts, looking at Emma and she shouldn’t anymore, she shouldn’t––“Is it _Robin_?” 

 

There’s a glint in Emma’s eyes and Regina can’t breathe. She can’t. 

 

“It’s not just––“ Emma attempts, her frown so deep, eyes so sad, and arms just _pleading_. “I’m lost, and confused, and I need out.”

 

“Then _get out_ ,” Regina says, heading for the door and opening it. “You just lost the right you never really had in the first place. I’ll collect Henry’s things tomorrow. Then you’re free to go. Come back only when you’ve gotten yourself together.”

 

Regina looks up at the ceiling, closing herself off for further conversation and not daring to look at Emma’s sad, sorrowful, _full of shit_ eyes. 

 

“You wanted to run. So run.”

 

So Emma does.

 

* * *

 

They’re leaving necessary conversations for the morning. She is too tired, too hurt. She checks Henry for any cuts from when he jumped out of Emma’s car, and then they go on with nightly routines, a heavier weight on their shoulders. They have cereal for dinner and there is no talking.

 

It is half past eleven when Henry is finally asleep and she finds herself knocking on Zelena’s door. Her movements feel slow and jagged and once Zelena lets her in, once they sit on her bed and Zelena puts an awkward but trying arm across the back of Regina’s shoulders, everything spills out; she starts crying and cannot stop and her hands could never be big enough to catch all the tears that fall.

 

“I don’t want to lose him,” she wails, and she feels so small, so small in her sister’s tightening arms. There is no room for guilt over being the one who is supposed to have it together.

 

“You won’t,” Zelena says softly, and if Regina could hear above her own crying, she’d hear the shaking of her voice. “You won’t.”

 

She rubs her arm and leans her head atop Regina’s, and she’s warm. They’ve never hugged before now but Regina needs someone, she needs to be reminded that she’s not as alone as she feels she is. 

 

“In the morning,” she manages, throat aching, face numbing. “Please get Henry’s things at Mary Margaret’s.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I don’t want to see any of them. I don’t. Not now.”

 

Zelena hushes her, and she’s learning to be gentle, to be comfort –– or perhaps, only relearning. 

 

And as Regina continues to cry and Zelena continues to hold her together, underneath all the painful chaos, there is a vague thought of how if they had known each other before, if they had had each other before, this is how it could’ve been for the both of them.

 

It scares her a little, because those things never last as long as they should. Someone is always there to make sure of that.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then Regina is looking at her like she’s missed a giant sign, like something has completely flown over her head and now she’s bringing it back to hit her in the face with it.
> 
> “If simply hurting one another was grounds for not being family anymore,” Regina says, so strong, wanting so much to be heard, voice rising like it might take off, “we wouldn’t be here! None of us would be here. We would all be alone!”
> 
> It’s unspoken: “You would be alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve split this chapter in two, because it just makes sense thematically and length-wise. Big thanks to all of you who have continued to read on; shout out to corasqueen, wickedcleavage, onellabella, and bassthetortoise for being an audience to my behind-the-scenes slaughter of emotions.

 

 

Nowadays everything is a surprise –– and Zelena, she who has calculated every step of her life since she had run away, doesn’t know how to feel about it.

 

She does know, however, that when Regina suffers like this, when she looks and sounds like her entire world has gone dark, a dull pain starts in her chest. There is no place for elation, pleasure, or even for apathy, responses that were just _instinct_ for such a long time. 

 

She isn’t used to it. She didn’t think she was capable of it anymore, and part of it makes her feel sick; carelessness and cruelty was easier, then, when she had no real reasons to be otherwise and with all the motivation to be in control. The rest of it just makes her feel afraid and vulnerable. 

 

The day’s barely begun and she already wants to say fuck it.

 

Perhaps not the best state of mind to be in right now, going about without supervision and in a car she can barely maneuver. Zelena hasn’t even left the driveway yet and she feels like driving off into nowhere, ceasing to exist, nobody marking her. She should, could, and definitely would, but then she remembers Regina the night before and how they both had barely slept a wink and how all this time, she’s been so _kind_ , _truly kind_ ; how she is so full of love and Zelena doesn’t understand _how_ but someone –– someone tried to take that from her.

 

And not long ago, she had worked to do it herself.

 

The guilt weighs down like something is pulling at her ribs, and then Zelena shakes it off; she has a task at hand and it’s heavy with emotional baggage as it is.

 

The car rumbles as she wheels onto the street with a deliberate caution –– all this head knowledge about this world, yet little to no application, a tricky thing it was –– and perhaps she receives an odd look from one or two people walking along. Arguably, it is absurd to come past the former wicked witch driving her sister’s Mercedes like an old woman. And arguably, this town has seen stranger, so who really gives a shit, they're all lucky her desire to run them all over comes second to Regina.

 

(She is growing on her. It's obvious and has been so, but it is ever apparent if she’s able to get her to do these ridiculous things on her behalf.)

 

Zelena reaches the apartment, and when the anxiety of being seen or worse looked at or worse _approached and talked to_ subsides with the relief of being indoors again, she redirects her negativity to the woman who answers the door.

 

Emma wordlessly opens the door, cradling baby Neal to her shoulder with the other arm, perhaps using him to occupy herself and fidget with. Snow White and David are not inside, and maybe they’re too ashamed to be –– who knew.

 

“That’s his luggage right there,” she says, like it shouldn’t be painful. She tilts her head in its direction by the sofa, making no eye contact. Emma moves away slowly and deliberately behind the kitchen counter, bouncing slightly to keep Neal relaxed.

 

She makes it so easy to want to push buttons. “Using your little brother as a kind of shield,” Zelena starts, pulling up the luggage handle with a sharp upward motion. “Rather pathetic, don’t you think?”

 

Emma frowns, still refuses to look at her. “You need to take that and go already. I don’t want to fight with you.”

 

“What, cause I’m ‘not too bad’?” Zelena echoes from yesterday. “You should’ve thought about what fights you’d start when you tried to take my sister’s son away.”

 

It becomes clear, then, that baby Neal is Zelena’s shield, not Emma’s, because when she turns slightly to keep Zelena out of her line of sight, her jaws are clenched so hard that if she weren’t holding him, she’d hop across the counter just to choke the life out of her.

 

Perhaps she sees a twinkle of a tear in the corner of Emma’s eye, and perhaps she should be feeling sympathy. But modest waterworks only anger her; no amount of crying on Emma’s part could wash away the disturbing memory of Regina shaking and _wailing_ beside her.

 

“Why did you do it, then?” she asks, hardness not quite there as it used to.

 

“Please go,” Emma insists, bounces and sways even more as her distress manifests itself; Neal starts to whimper. 

 

“Because if I had did it, no one would be surprised. Regina wouldn’t be surprised. But you?” Zelena scoffs, “People trust you. They expect you to ––“

 

“Don’t you fucking _dare_ talk to me about what is expected of me,” Emma finally snaps, and Neal squirms and cries in her arms.

 

It’s like a bird is pecking at her temples with the irritation she suddenly feels, one that quickly turns into indignation. She doesn’t really think about what she says next, or if she’s even in a place to say them.

 

“So expectations are your problem? What?” she shouts, and it’s cacophonous with the baby’s screams ripping through and Emma’s attempts to quiet him in vain. “You –– you and your ilk, for some arbitrary reason, are meant to be _good_. And those like us, like Regina and me, we’re expected to be _evil,_ wicked, vile. And that means people like you, seeing yourselves fit to do _whatever_ you think we deserve. Your so-called problems are fucking nothing, Emma Swan. Don’t you dare think your crying will earn anything from me but disgust.”

 

Zelena doesn’t stick around to survey any damage she’d done, even though she wants to (gods does she want to; there is something about tearing someone apart that she has missed so _greatly_ ). 

 

Neal, still crying, can be heard from downstairs; the ringing of his shrill voice is still present in her ears as she lifts the luggage into the trunk. She gets in the car and thinks she should’ve killed that baby when she had the chance –– maybe then she’d be unforgivable and she would rot away instead of having to deal with all of this bullshit.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Henry is playing video games downstairs as Zelena helps Regina unpack his things. He’s been through so much already that they both think he deserves a break, that he should still enjoy the privilege of not having to think about chaos through the hours of the day.

 

“Thank you,” Regina says, placing folded sweaters into Henry’s drawer.

 

“All I’m doing is sitting down and passing things along to you, it’s really nothing ––“

 

“I meant,” she interrupts, “for getting this in the first place.”

 

“Oh.” Zelena hands Regina a stack of Henry’s jeans from the open luggage. “No problem.”

 

“I shouldn’t have asked that of you.”

 

“I said it was not a problem.”

 

“I think it was.”

 

Zelena looks up at Regina, giving her those eyes full of knowing and understanding and she still doesn’t know how she can manage to look at her like that after everything, how many times she must’ve given Emma that same gaze only to be disappointed again and again.

 

“I’m angry on your behalf,” she says, breaking eye contact, removing socks from the pocket. “Shocker, isn’t it? Oh, dear, these need to be washed.”

 

“Most things don’t surprise me anymore,” Regina replies, “And preteen boy feet. I should probably be investing in Gold Bond.” She breathes out like it’s meant to be a laugh, but it dies the moment it is exhaled. 

 

She’s going to tell her. Perhaps her smile would reach her eyes, maybe she’d be given extra thanks for saying what she’d always wanted to say.

 

“Emma was there, when I came in,” she starts.

 

Regina puts in the last of clothes in his closet and begins putting away the luggage. “I don’t think I’d like to know any more, please.”

 

“I told her,” she presses, and the _satisfaction_ of reliving it should scare her, but it doesn’t, “I told her what she did was –– that whatever her problems were, they were nothing compared to yours. That they were nothing.”

 

Regina’s staring wide-eyed at her now, and it makes Zelena feel uneasy over her excitement. The astonishment takes a turn in the exact opposite direction that she had wanted it to make.

 

“You said _what_ to her?”

 

Everything shatters and Zelena is thinking about driving away into nothingness again.

 

“What –– Why,” Zelena blunders, then collects herself, “She deserved to hear the truth. Why are you upset?”

 

Regina shakes her head, and she’s not yelling, not yet anyway, “That’s not the truth, Zelena. We don’t tell someone that their pain doesn’t matter and call it the truth. We don’t do that in this family.”

 

Nowadays _everything_ is a surprise.

 

“And she’s still family,” Zelena scoffs, pointing with her hand to the invisible presence that was Emma.

 

“Yes!” 

 

“You spent the whole night, _crying_. Because of her!”

 

And then Regina is looking at her like she’s missed a giant sign, like something has completely flown over her head and now she’s bringing it back to hit her in the face with it.

 

“If simply hurting one another was grounds for not being family anymore,” Regina says, so strong, wanting so much to be heard, voice rising like it might take off, “we wouldn’t _be_ here! None of us would be here. We would all be _alone_!”

 

It’s unspoken: “ _You_ would be alone.”

 

There is no room for thinking like a rational person. That was never the kind of person Zelena was, anyway, in retrospect. “Well maybe that’s right for me then,” she chokes out, blinded stupid by anger and humiliation and just _not_ understanding. “Maybe I should just be alone forever!”

 

Regina’s stupefied again, she seriously literally gasps like she’s taken aback, and then shouts with equal volume: “Fine!”

 

Zelena stomps forward to Henry’s door and instinctively flings her arm outward. It doesn’t swing open, and after a moment of confusion, it occurs to the both of them what she just tried and failed to do.

 

She growls in frustration, takes the knob, twists it, and doesn’t even close it when she storms out. She does, however, punctuate the argument by banging her own door shut. 

 

The picture of Regina’s father stares blankly back at her on top of the dresser, and she has to flip it downward; she doesn’t need his judgment either. She hears Regina enter her own room, hears her knock something down.

 

Fuck today. Really, truly, fuck it.

 

* * *

 

She’s been reduced to sulking on the floor beside the bed. Perhaps she could just roll under it and die there and everyone’s problems would be solved.

 

She’s sure it’s done. That soon Regina will come in to tell her that she needs to pack up and leave, that she is going to be locked up in a cell for sure this time because she’s fucked it up. Henry has already knocked on her door to ask if he could see her, only for Regina to pull him away and say that now’s not the time.

 

She’s ruined it again. Just like she did in Oz. Nobody changes. She can’t change. This isn’t her destiny.

 

It all bubbles up in her stomach, collects in her chest and then she has to let it out; she cries and cries because she’s so unhappy and she doesn’t know how to do this and things used to be so much easier when the most fulfilling thing was trying to have Regina’s life rather than be a part of it.

 

Regina told her they could be real sisters and idea was so absurd that she laughed her out of the room. Now the very thing can be taken away from her, and now she’s pounding her fist on the floor like an absolute fucking baby.

 

Pathetic.

 

She hears the knob jiggle and she holds her breath, like she’ll be able to fool Regina that she’s not here. She should’ve opened the window, let her think that she’d jumped out and escaped, but she’s breathing too heavily. You could hear her sob from across the street, maybe.

 

“Zelena?” Regina says softly. All the anger has dissipated, it should be safe to sit up and meet eyes with her but Zelena lies still.

 

She hears a sigh, the click of the door closing, and the squeak of the mattress as Regina sits on it. The floor Zelena lies on becomes dark with her shadow.

 

“Zelena.”

 

Zelena hiccups in response, sniffles, and Regina rises briefly and then soon a hand is descending from above to place the tissue box beside Zelena’s head. It’s almost half empty.

 

She grumbles, but takes a one anyway and dries her face.

 

“I’m sorry for yelling,” Regina says, just above a whisper, and her voice is warm and secure and doesn’t sound like she’ll be giving her the boot.

 

“You’re not sending me away then,” Zelena replies, interrupted only by a hiccup, “are you?”

 

“No.” It’s said like it would never be “yes.”

 

She sits up and leans against the opposite wall, and Regina lowers her head against a propped up elbow, facing her.

 

“I can’t do it, Regina,” Zelena says after a period of silence, voice jagged like broken glass, or peeled shells off a hard boiled egg. “How could I be _good_ when I don’t really know what it is? I can only be wicked. That’s all I ever was, what I ever will be, and I can’t escape it.”

 

Regina shakes her head so slightly that Zelena’s sure she’s imagined it, but her eyes are also wet and she’s climbing off the bed to sit down next to her, taking her hand. “But you have. You have.”

 

“I don’t know why you try with me,” Zelena breathes out, and more tears are collecting at the rims of her eyes and on her eyelashes, then rolling down and down. “I don’t know why you want me to keep trying. I’m so tired. I’m so _scared_ ––“

 

The last word is drowned out by the lump in her throat that makes it through in the form of a strangled sob, and once she’s started she can’t stop and Regina’s still holding her hand and being this person that Zelena doesn’t understand and then –– _and then ––_ to top it all off, Regina starts _singing_.

 

“ _Chiquitita, tell me what’s wrong… You’re enchained by your own sorrow…”_

 

It’s enough to silence Zelena, though the flow of tears continues on. “What?”

 

“ _In your eyes there is no hope for tomorrow.”_ Regina has a stupid smile on, like she might laugh and cry at the same time.  She runs a thumb over Zelena’s hand. “ _How I hate to see you like this_ … come on, sing along –– _There is no way you can deny it_ …”

 

“You sound _ridiculous._ ” Zelena laughs, and just like that, she’s not crying anymore, and she understands what Regina is trying to do; she is almost touched (really, incredibly, like her heart may burst) that she had remembered. “My mother was a better singer. What song was that anyway?”

 

“If you had listened to the ABBA album like I said you should, you’d know.” 

 

Zelena laughs, but it dies quickly under the weight of a sigh when she feels the dried tears crack in the lines of her face. “Look at me. All I ever do is weep.”

 

Regina takes back her hand and leans her head back to the wall. “We share that. Maybe we got it from Cora. Funny thing, she never seemed to cry.”

 

“Maybe it’s recessive.”

 

“Maybe we just have a lot to cry about.”

 

“Fair enough,” Zelena huffs. Then, more solemnly, her eyes looking straight on into nothing. “Listen… I never really apologized.”

 

“You thought you were doing right by me.”

 

“No. No, not that. I mean, that too, but I’m talking about all the things I’d said to you before we, you know. Started being better.”

 

Regina doesn’t respond, and Zelena thinks perhaps she’s hurt her by way of reminding her.

 

“What I did to Emma, that’s what I essentially did to you, wasn’t it?”

 

“Might’ve been,” Regina replies so, so quietly.

 

“I was so jealous of you and what you had that I thought –– it wasn’t –– what you felt was so _irrelevant_ to me and I treated you like they didn’t matter, like you had no real reasons for feeling pain and we do all this talking but we never got to talk about that and I’m just –– I’m _sorry_.”

 

Regina turns to her abruptly and Zelena thinks she might yell at her, but her eyes are filmy glossy again, and she says: “You absolute idiot. You’re forgiven. You were forgiven the moment you called me _hermanita_.”

 

* * *

 

Henry’s face when he sees Zelena join them for dinner lights up so much that she thinks she might die if this ever stops; the last time anyone’s ever looked so truly happy to see her with no manipulative glint in their eye was her mother.

 

It’s impressive that he even smiles at all, though –– he is in the middle of a tear in the fabric of his already poorly sewn family, but to be fair, he’s probably seen worse and has remained optimistic this whole time.

 

Except when the phone rings and Regina has to excuse herself briefly, Henry frowns slightly, looks at Zelena. “She usually lets it go to the machine.”

 

“Maybe it’s just Robin,” Zelena says dismissively, because there’s this heaviness in his voice and they’re having dinner and she’s been doing emotional acrobatics for too many consecutive days. “You know how disgusting those enamored with each other are.”

 

Henry shrugs, pokes around chunks of potato with his fork. “He wouldn’t call during dinner. He knows it’s rude.”

 

“Ah, shoots arrows at people’s heads but still has manners. Who knew.”

 

It’s enough to make Henry chuckle, but when it dies down, he’s still somber, like it’s his equilibrium. “I don’t want to choose between my moms. I’ve done it enough times.”

 

Zelena wishes she could empathize with the struggle of being pulled in multiple directions. She really does; maybe she’d have something useful to say to him. But she only knows pushing and being pushed. “Then don’t.”

 

Henry looks at her like maybe she doesn’t understand the degree of damage that’s been done. (But she does. She can’t forget it, how shattered Regina sounded as cried, “I don’t want to lose him.”)

 

“If I know anything about Regina,” Zelena starts after his silence stretches, “she would never put you in a position where you had to choose.”

 

The face he makes and the way his grip on his fork loosens just a bit has her feeling uneasy and she wishes Regina would get back from whatever phone call she is having. His body is an echo of the night he had ran from Emma and to the front door.

 

“If she loves me at all, I think she’ll have to.”

 

She doesn’t know what that means.

 

* * *

 

This time it’s Zelena who knocks on Regina’s bedroom door.

 

“Let me apologize to Emma tomorrow.”

 

Regina looks like she was afraid she’d ask that. “I can’t let you do that. That was her on the phone earlier. She’s leaving in the morning to New York.”

 

There’s something in her voice and the way she wrings her hands together on her lap that reveals layers and layers of doubt. It clicks like locks becoming undone in Zelena’s mind.

 

“For good, and Henry doesn’t know,” she says slowly, and it’s not a question seeking affirmation. And then she’s remembering Henry and his voice is echoing so much that it comes out of her own mouth. “If you love him at all, you will tell him.”

 

Regina brings her hands up to her chest and she’s shaking her head and rocking back and forth and the tears are falling and falling. So much to cry about, so many hours in the day. “I can’t do that to him, I can’t, I can’t.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When she’s outside she regrets not putting the hood back up, because now she’s getting looks from people on their way to the diner and she hears murmurs of “hey, isn’t that her?” and fuck this fuck today fuck Storybrooke, fuck these people. Snow White has a goddamn mafia under her sleeve.

 

 

This is the life she never knew she wanted. It’s not perfect, not even an inch toward it,  and she’s only had it for nearing a month, but she has Regina, she has Henry, a budding potential to be _happy_ , and it is so much better than what she used to have: anger, envy, hatred. It’s all just _so much better_.

 

That’s why she rises at an ungodly hour, puts on a hoodie that Regina had stuck in her closet and a pair of sunglasses for anonymous measure, why she nabs Regina’s car keys and hopes that when she arrives, Emma is at least in the driveway.

 

Her feet feel ridiculous in bulky white tennis shoes but no one needs to hear the sound of apologetic heels sneaking out into the dawn. She might as hell have, though, the ignition breaks the morning silence that she has to hold her breath and wait before she finally goes and drives (a little faster this time, she’s gotten the hang of it and the streets always seem to be devoid of moving cars anyway).

 

Emma is putting the last of her things in her trunk when she pulls over in front of her bug, and doesn’t have the same amount of patience as she did the first time when Zelena comes out of the car, clumsily removing her shades and tossing them in the seat.

 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Emma demands, slamming the trunk shut, quiet enough not to wake everyone around but rough enough to let Zelena know that if she has to, she will dent her face with her knuckles.

 

She never really thought this through beyond a simple _I’m sorry, please don’t make the few people in my life miserable_. “Me? What do you think _you’re_ doing?”

 

The corner of Emma’s lip twitches upward in a sardonic smile and then a contemptuous snarl as she shakes her head, her arms stiff with balled fists at the end of them. “Aren’t you the absolutely last person to be asking me anything? Get that car out my way or I’ll do it myself.”

 

“I’m not sure that’s what light magic is for, Swan,” Zelena bites back, and then remembers herself, why she’s here. “Look, stop, I’m here to apologize.”

 

Emma looks more offended than anything, like she’s been pinched on the arm. “What?”

 

“I said some fucked up things to you the other day and I was wrong to say them and I know, this is weird, coming from me and all, and I suppose I’m working from a very selfish place here because I’m doing this for my sister and the boy we all seem to love so much around here –– so _please,_ I’m sorry, and don’t do this.” She more she talks the faster she speaks, and the more Emma softens not into forgiveness but something else, something _sad_.

 

“No,” she says, and it’s not angry. “But you were right. That’s why I’m leaving.”

 

There is nothing but confusion swimming through Zelena’s head. “What?”

 

“You said that ––” Emma starts, quietly, quietly, “I did a lot of destructive shit to Regina for the sake of, in the _name_ of, whatever, _good_ I thought I was doing. If I go I won’t be able to do that anymore. And I won’t have to be brainwashed into that shit over again.”

 

“What about Henry? Your parents, your _brother_ ––“

 

“Look, Zelena,” Emma interrupts, a hand cutting the air in between them for emphasis, “I appreciate you coming out here just to apologize, you’ve really come a long way really fast, but here’s the thing: you’re not who I’m supposed to explain myself to. I already did for those it concerns, so I’m done here. Please move the car.”

 

Emma’s about to open the door, but Zelena’s thinking of Regina and Henry and how full of _love_ they are so she says something so ridiculous that it doesn’t register until she’s already said it: “ _Ohana_.”

 

Emma’s staring at her, the bug open only halfway. “ _What_?”

 

It’s already being done. She has to keep going. What the fuck is she doing. “It means family. And family means no one gets left behind.”

 

“Am I being quoted _Lilo and Stitch_ by the fucking Wicked Witch of the West? Is this _real_?” She might actually, _actually_ snap now. Zelena might die here, and those words will have been her last. And then Emma gives a derisive laugh, turns away from Zelena and to the bug, “Oh, I see. It’s cause you have no idea what family is so you have to draw from a fucking _Disney movie_.”

 

Zelena is actually stunned into silence. She wonders why she’s here; if she had seen any of this bullshit coming then she wouldn’t have come. Gods, she should’ve just killed the baby, should’ve done something unforgivable.

 

“I’m losing my mind here,” Emma says quietly, roughly, like she’s aged decades. “Get the fuck away from me now, please.”

 

“Emma––“

 

“I _said––_ “ She whips around and a brief white flash later, Zelena’s flung onto the ground, her head barely missing the Mercedes. It’s nothing like when they all fought at the barn, but without the cushion of regenerative or anesthetic magic, her body stings. When she looks up, Emma is wide-eyed and afraid. Her hands are up, still deciding between coming to her and helping her up or doing nothing at all.

 

“I’m –– I didn’t mean ––“ she starts, but Zelena shakes her head.

 

“It’s fine.” Zelena gets up, brushes the dirt off of her bottom and front, and she’s so tired already. 

 

There’s a period of stillness. Then Emma speaks: “That night. Regina told me that until I get my shit together, I should go. That’s what I’m doing. Please tell her and Henry that.”

 

Zelena nods. She feels foolish. This isn’t her battle.

 

“You should know, Zelena, that you were right, but you’re also outnumbered. And we made things hard for Regina, when she decided that she was going to hop sides.” It sounds like a warning, like how you’d tell someone to watch their step when they’re climbing a ladder. But it does nothing for Zelena. It only confirms the suspected.

 

“So that’s how it’s gonna be for me, then. Take your high horses and go to hell, all of you.”

 

Zelena gets in the car, moves out of Emma’s way, and doesn’t watch the yellow bug disappear out of her field of vision. That’s maybe what Regina would do, but not her. Not for someone like Emma.

 

* * *

 

 

Coffee couldn’t possibly be enough of an apology for sneaking out, taking the car, and speaking with Emma against Regina’s wishes, especially when it is purchased with stray cash left in the various compartments of the car (Henry’s unused lunch money over the years, maybe, or change stuffed in quickly while late to work), but she might as well.

 

She’s waiting at the counter of the diner, hood over her head and sunglasses on; she’s already soiled her morning by quoting a cartoon to the actual Savior and being pushed to the ground in response, she doesn’t want to be recognized or looked at and most of all she doesn’t want to be spoken to. 

 

It’s the old widow who brings her the coffee. “Regina finally let you off your leash, huh? Or will I have to pat you down, make sure there’s nothing hidden in those big clothes of yours?”

 

Zelena stiffens up nervously, caught between putting on a friendly front or giving it all to her as it is. “The only thing in this sweater is me.”

 

Granny gives an amused laugh, and it makes Zelena feels safe enough to remove the shades and pull down the hood. After all, the diner is practically empty, only occupied by an unrecognizable and commonplace bunch. Then the door chimes open and just her fucking luck, _her fucking luck_. 

 

“Hey,” a coarse, _irritatingly loud_ voice pierces through the air, “What’s _she_ doin’ here?”

 

She needs her pendant back, if only to immobilize everyone so she can get out without having to deal with them. 

 

She tries to ignore him, she really does, but then Granny’s sighing and dragging it all on. “Grumpy, it’s too early in the morning for you to be shouting. Learn from Bashful or something.”

 

“She’s not supposed to be here without anyone to look after her,” he says, and fuck everything he’s actually invading Zelena’s space bubble that if he had done that when she had her magic, she would’ve snapped his neck.

 

“Regina has deemed me safe enough for the public,” Zelena says slowly, putting the sunglasses back on. Hopefully instead of hiding the fear in her eyes, it’ll give the illusion of not giving a fuck.

 

Grumpy gives a snort. “Yeah. Like we trust any judgments Regina makes anyway.”

 

And then that’s it. Zelena loses her cool just like that. “Are you _serious_?” She looks to Granny, for something, anything, but she simply shrugs and goes to the back kitchen. 

 

“After all she’s done? Of course I’m serious.”

 

“After all she’s done!” Zelena repeats incredulously. “Need I remind you that you are talking to one of the very dangers that Regina has saved you all from.”

 

“Well,” someone else chimes in, another dwarf, maybe, like this is their conversation, like this is something that should be said at all, “We don’t really know the whole story, do we.”

 

Grumpy puts on a smug face. “See. Right. Your kind of people are always sneaky like that. She’s probably why Emma’s booked it. Wants Henry all to herself.”

 

Whole stories. They don’t give a shit about whole stories.

 

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Zelena says more to herself, and she picks up the two lidded cups of coffee and gets ready to leave. It’s probably gone lukewarm, but with the way her blood is boiling, she could reheat it again.

 

“Watch your back, Greenie!” Grumpy shouts, and she actually shivers because _you’re also outnumbered._

 

When she’s outside she regrets not putting the hood back up, because now she’s getting looks from people on their way to the diner and she hears murmurs of “hey, isn’t that _her_?” and fuck this fuck today fuck Storybrooke, fuck these people. Snow White has a goddamn mafia under her sleeve.

 

Zelena looks down and walks faster to round the corner where she’d parked. It isn’t fair. At least with Regina, she’s the mayor and a powerful witch and therefore hard to touch. Zelena is nobody, no kind of power. None. 

 

She passes by the Miata she once hurled Regina into and she considers vandalizing it.

 

The safety of the Mercedes is moments away, _moments_ away, but she’s not looking anywhere but ahead and there’s a collision with another body and the sunglasses have been knocked out of her face and she’s dropped the coffee on herself and the ground.

 

“Oh!”

 

“ _Shit_.”

 

She regrets ever stepping outside of the Mills mansion.

 

“Oh, you ––” a light voice of a girl exclaims next to her –– she doesn’t know who it is, she’s still looking away even though she’s shaking with frustration. She’s expecting something accusatory to follow but instead she gets something else.

 

“I’m _so_ sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going! Oh, gods, I’ll get you another couple of those, an extra one even, I’m so sorry ––“

 

She runs her mouth in a panic and it shocks her so much that Zelena _has_ to look at her. Short, donned in green, ridiculously sparkly eyes and a giant yellow bun atop her head. She knows her, she’s seen her with Regina all those years ago.

 

“Hey,” she stops, a smile reaching all the way to her eyes, “You’re Zelena, aren’t you? Regina’s sister?”

 

It’s not like those who spoke in hushed tones as they stared at her. She’s being spoken to like –– someone you literally bump into on the street. Someone youwouldn’t _mind_ bumping into.

 

“Yes,” Zelena answers.

 

“She’s told me all about you. I’m Tink.”

 

She holds out her hand and Zelena must look absolutely _stupid,_ because for once in a long, long time, everything in her mind is _quiet_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap for this fic. The next installment of the series (which has yet to be outlined and titled, oops) will hopefully come not five years later than planned. Thanks again for reading and not being totally 100% done with my BS /hearts/


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